For a political novice, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens certainly has mastered the art of nasty, cutthroat politicking. She recently laid off Assistant Sheriff Jack Anderson as part of her understandable cuts of command staff in response to a budget mess (partly of her own making, given that she refused to do as other department heads did and cut the budget early on). Previously, she used Anderson — the ultimate following-orders guy — to advocate her anti-gun-rights position with regard to concealed-carry permits. Anderson angered the CCW activists on behalf of his boss, and then she threw him under the bus, thus eliminating a key political rival for re-election. It was a masterful Machiavellian political move. Cutting command staff also bought her support from the deputies’ union, which she has been actively courting (i.e., the way she denied the well-proven and obvious code of silence in her department and attacked the DA’s office). With Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters out of the race and Bill Hunt a far longshot, Hutchens has assured herself another term. Fortunately, the feds are looking into the jail situation given that the politically minded Hutchens denies there ever were jail problems beyond the misdeeds of a few Mike Carona hacks. So there might be some hope of reforming a jail system that has the reputation as being an unnecessarily abusive place.

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